By Julio Pohl, The Federalist.
Isadora Borges, a Brazilian veterinary student, faced trial last month for a post stating ‘trans women are not women.’
The censorship crisis in Europe has recently reignited global concern over protecting free expression. Europe has consistently made headlines for overreaching restrictions — from Vice President JD Vance highlighting the continent’s crisis of censorship to, more recently, Elon Musk’s high-profile challenge against the European Union in defense of online free speech. But the growing attacks on free speech across the Atlantic aren’t the only offenses to watch. Censorship in Brazil has been escalating since 2019, and the violations against free expression are just as alarming.
In Europe, we’ve seen: a sitting parliamentarian prosecuted for sharing a Bible verse on X, a comedian arrested for social media posts criticizing gender ideology, and citizens criminalized for merely praying silently in their own minds, among many other severe free speech violations. Brazil is producing its own wave of censorship abuses, much like these.
In Brazil, the criminal investigation of peaceful expression is increasingly normalized. In clear contravention of international law, citizens are being criminally investigated for online posts and commentary that would be considered lawful in most democracies. Often investigations peter out before a conviction, but the result is a persistent culture of fear where citizens live with the very real possibility that their speech could land them with a substantial prison sentence for no legitimate reason.
The Brazilian government’s use of broad, vague laws to police speech mirrors Europe’s Digital Services Act and other major threats to free speech: expansive powers, retroactive enforcement, and little recourse for those targeted.